


As Long As You Love Me

by berryfunkedup



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boy Band, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Homophobic Language, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:49:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3309521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berryfunkedup/pseuds/berryfunkedup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi and Erwin are former pop superstars who start a boy band for shits and giggles. It goes about as well as you'd expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Long As You Love Me

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting on my hard drive for over a year. I figure it's time to shit or get off the pot, as Levi might say. My love letter to the MTV and VH1 of the late 1990s/early 2000s. As interpreted through Shingeki no Kyojin characters. Unedited and unbeta'd. Title from the Backstreet Boys, obviously. Also, [here's a playlist.](http://8tracks.com/berryfunkedup/3dmg-2000)

1998

They were in bed, drifting in the contented space between post-orgasm glow and sleep.

“Erwin, I want to make a boy band.”

“OK.” Erwin didn’t miss a beat. “Any particular reason?”

“It’s easy to find a solo artist and make them famous. A band is more of a challenge. And a boy band, the cheesiest of all musical groups is the hardest to do well. Especially if you just throw one together for no reason except commercial gain, who do nothing but sing and dance. No real musical genius. A boy band designed by committee for the most appeal. I wonder if I can make one that people respect for their music. I want to try. It seems like fun.”

“I can see you are far too bored with my company if you are thinking that way. I guess you don’t feel any more pity for your poor one-arm husband.” Levi could hear Erwin’s grin.  “Boy bands are about to cycle back into fashion, so it’s a good idea for us to have one on the label anyway.” Just as they were about to drift into sleep Erwin murmured “3DMG.”

“What?”

“You know, because they are actually a three dimensional musical group, even if their sound is really one dimensional, get it?”

“Erwin. I’m not naming my boy band Three Dimensional Musical Group. That’s so lame.”

\--

1999

Three Dimensional Musical Group, or 3DMG for short, was a huge pop music sensation. Still, they were in desperate need of his guidance and expertise.

"This track is shit. We're starting from the beginning."

Grumbles and defensive exclamations from the band came over his headphones. 3DMG was the hottest boy band in the country and the brats had titanic egos.  Levi considered it his duty to humanity to cut them down to size. He leaned over the sound board to glare at the hopeless SOBs he managed and produced.

"Marco, you sounded dead, put some actual feelings into your voice. Jean, you are singing over everyone, again. Armin, you need to breathe, don't rush all of your words out at once. This song has a melody, Jesus fuck.  Connie, I know Jean makes hilarious faces when he sings, but don't laugh at them. I can hear it in your voice. Eren. This is a love song. You aren't trying to shank someone, you are trying to woo them. Fuck, you guys suck." Levi steamrolled right through the indignant squawks and protestations. "Do you shits want Erwin, motherfucking Erwin Smith, who also, you know, happens to be your god damn record company executive, to hear this atonal, pitiful excuse for a song and have him think this is the best you can do? Because I know you can do better. And if I'm not impressed, what the fuck makes you think he will be impressed? From the top."

\--

The guys had been practicing their new choreography for about an hour when Levi walked into their practice session.

He was not impressed.  He hit the pause button of the CD player and the music died abruptly. His unfortunate protégés halted their dance steps, bodies frozen and ungraceful. "Your dancing is shit. What the fuck am I seeing? Eren, you still look angry. Smile, and try to look like you actually enjoy being the lead singer of a world famous band for Christ's sake. Jean, wipe the smirk off your face - now AND while you're dancing, you look like a total asswipe. And both of you are going too fast and getting out of sync with the others. It's not a fucking competition. Armin, watch your pace too, you're falling behind too fucking much. Just because you're in the back doesn't mean I can't see you. Marco, I still need to see more movement, you're way too stiff and your right side is never as animated as your left, how many times do I have to tell you, god damn. Connie...you're actually ok. Mikasa, show these jackoffs the routine once more."

He unpaused the music and Mikasa launched into her choreography. 

“You will be practicing these moves until you perfect them. Are we clear?”

\--

Levi trudged back to the office he shared with Erwin. The new music video concept was done and Levi needed to hash out the financial details with Erwin. The wall behind Erwin’s desk were full of gold records, Grammys, and his diplomas in music theory and business. The other walls were covered in posters and pictures from Erwin and Levi’s glory days in the 70s and 80s. Erwin had terrible glamrock hair and spandex jumpsuits that left nothing to the imagination in most of them. Levi found it hard not to daydream about the last time he had seen Erwin wearing one - last Friday night and the man filled it out just as beautifully. Levi had his share of tragic outfits too. The purple velvet suit with cravat and platform glitter heels had pride of place right across from Erwin’s desk so the damn pervert could look at it as much as he wanted.

“How are our prodigies?”

“They’ve got nothing on us from back in the day.”

“Of course not.” Erwin met Levi’s eyes, mischievous smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Still thinking it was a fun idea to start a boy band?”

\--

2000

Levi adamantly refused to do an episode of Cribs. Not that he had even been asked, since he and Erwin were really too old for MTV’s current demographic. But just the thought that he _could_ be asked offended him. No such concern extended itself to his protégés. MTV wanted a behind the scenes documentary to give 3DMG’s fans a look at their “real lives.” The “real lives” that Levi, Erwin and the rest of the team carefully constructed for them. Levi was perfectly content to let the cameras in. Hell, he would even deign to appear on screen a few times. He was a generous soul after all.

He proposed the idea to Erwin over the phone that night. Levi was in New York with the kids to promote their new music video on TRL while Erwin was still in LA playing big shot record executive.

“I think it’s a great idea. It’s not so different from the concert videos we did back in the day. Rockumentaries have always been popular.”

“Please never use the word rockumentary again. Anyway, we’ll need to come up with how we are going to approach this. Where, when, who’s allowed to be interviewed, all that jazz.”

“Right. Well, it seems to me like we should time it during the next tour. That’s in six months, which should be plenty of time to get everything prepared. We’ll shoot on the road, and the culmination will be a show in Middle America, not some place glamorous like New York, so the guys seem down to earth. As for who can be interviewed, I think we can safely trust everyone we’ve hired. But we’ll let the focus be on the boys mostly.”

This is why Levi always brought up his ideas for the band with Erwin. He’d had less than a minute to think about shooting a rockumentary – shit no, a slice of life piece, and he’d already planned out the best way to attack it. 

“I’ll make sure to clear my schedule so I can be around during filming,” Erwin offered.

“Camera whore.”

“You know it. Miss you.”

“It’s been less than a day,” Levi grouched. “I miss you too.”

\--

Levi ran through the outline of the segment with the five guys and the MTV crew and then settled in to watch the unfolding footage on the small camera monitor with the director.

Eren was the group’s lead singer, but Jean was almost always the spokesman during interviews. He was more articulate than Eren and was more personable than Armin, who still got stage fright at times. Connie could always be counted on for one-liners, and Marco was a great supporting actor, who could expand on Jean’s points without competing for the limelight. All in all Levi was pleased with their composition. So when it was time for the cameras to start rolling, Eren would introduce the sequence with his characteristic passion, Jean would cut in with a more refined explanation, Marco would build on that, Armin would point out something that might be otherwise overlooked or would tie it all back to the big picture, and Connie would riff off what everyone else was saying.

“SO, this is our tour bus. It’s really awesome! We’ve got so many cool gadgets in here, you would not believe!! Let me show you!!” Eren waved at the bus rather wildly and yanked open the doors with a dramatic flourish, the way he opened all doors, like he was opening a new world to explore.

Jean greeted the camera at the top of the stairs. “Welcome to our humble abode on the road. The first thing you are going to see is really the most important in this whole operation, our driver. He makes sure we don’t die in horrible car crashes, so we owe him a lot. Say hi Mr. Shadis!” The driver was an angry looking bald man who merely glared straight into the lens. Levi had hired him because Shadis had even less tolerance for teenage bullshit than he did. “He’s the best,” Jean continued, totally unfazed. “Sometimes he yells at us for being too rowdy, but we know he loves us deep, deep down.”

“OK, so here’s the next stop on the tour. This the kitchen. Really important. We have so much food in here.” Eren’s face popped back into the scene. “Oh, and look, Marco and Armin and Connie are here too!” Levi was impressed how well Eren managed to actually seem surprised, as if this wasn’t something that had been meticulously staged. “Yo dudes! Watcha eating? Doritos? Gimme!” He reached out to snatch the bag from the table, but Marco grabbed it and pulled it into his lap.

“No way, Eren, get your own freaking bag.”

“Armin, Connie, are you guys just going to let him do that to me?” Eren launched himself at Marco and a game of keep-away was on.

“Eren, just get your own bag, why are you fighting him?” Connie laughed.

“We don’t just eat here,” Jean cut through Eren’s tangential conversation. “We also have band meetings here.”

“Sometimes Connie stands on the table and gives dramatic readings of bad reviews of our records,” Marco chimed in. Levi knew it was more often dramatic readings of gushy fan letters, so he gave mental props to the kid for diplomacy.

“The table can become a bed too,” Connie, leering at the camera, eyebrows wagging.

“Like you’ve ever gotten any on it. You’re lame and Boss would KILL YOU.” Jean cut in.

“So true.” Connie looked queasy and a little terrified. Good. Levi would kill them if they ever had any kind of sexual relations on the bus, and he would make it an excruciating death if they did it in the kitchen. 

“The actual beds are down here. Oh and here’s the bathroom. If there’s one place you know is clean on the bus it’s the bathroom.” That was Eren again. “Surprising right? For a bunch of guys? But the boss is really strict about keeping it clean. REALLY. STRICT. Like, this whole place gets scrubbed down once a day by a cleaning crew, but I’ve even brushed the bowl a couple of times myself after evacuation duty just because it’s really been drilled into me.”

“Me too,” the rest of the boys chorused. Levi hadn’t known that. His heart swelled with pride while making a mental note to cut the segment. Nobody needed to know about the details of Eren’s so-called evacuation duty.

“Yeah, so here are the beds. Armin’s got a Star Wars blanket on his ‘cause he’s a giant nerd.”

“Screw you Jean. At least my mom didn’t pick out my bedding like yours did.”

“Hey!” Jean turned rosy.

“You can’t deny it ‘cause it’s true.” Connie smirked.

“Marco, make them stop picking on me.” Jean was met with a ‘too-bad-for-you’ shrug.

“Guys, no one cares about the stupid beds. We gotta finish the tour.” Eren, as always marching everything along. Levi knew that was totally untrue. There were thousands of teenage girls who were extremely interested in their beds. The MTV camera guy knew it too, and he made sure to get some lingering shots of all of the bunks, which Levi had conveniently labeled for the viewers at home.

“OK, and back here is the best part of the whole bus,” Eren’s voice drifted over the scene. The cameraman caught up to all five guys in a space set up with bean bag chairs, a sofa, tv, and a couple of guitars lying around. There was a panoramic window that went nearly from floor to ceiling. “This is where we game, watch tv, and jam. If you see us on the road, look back here and wave! So that’s our bus!”

Armin picked up the segue into the next sequence. “Of course, we don’t just travel with just this bus. We have another bus for our crew and a semi full of band equipment. So let’s go take a look.”

The director called cut.

\--

3DMG had a caravan when they went on the road. Two tour buses, a semi, security vehicles that flanked them, and Levi’s RV (because Levi was not about to spend the night surrounded by hormonal teenagers or other employees when he could be comfortably ensconced in bed with Erwin on their own private mode of transportation).

He and Erwin had a house in LA, and an apartment in New York. Levi hated both of them. They were convenient for business purposes, but Levi couldn’t stand the traffic and smog in LA, and there were altogether too many people in New York. Their true home was further up the California coast, past Malibu where all the other rich pretentious fuckers lived, to a quieter town, where they had a beach front house, warm sea breezes that were good for Erwin’s arm and its phantom limb pain, and where people left them alone. Of course, they were hardly ever there. Instead they had spent much of the past year in the RV, criss-crossing America.

It reminded Levi of when he first met Erwin. The apartment he had lived in hadn’t been any bigger than the RV, maybe even smaller. Erwin had filled up the space with his sheer physical size and immense charisma. He still did. And yet, Levi had never felt lessened or diminished by him. He simply felt complete, like something was filling in all his gaps, adding that something to his life that he lacked. Erwin was there to sit on the other side of the sofa, eat in the other chair at the table, sleep on the other side of the bed, use the extra towel set, and finish Levi’s left over food. He was there to remind Levi where he had forgotten his keys, supply the words that were on the tip of his tongue but couldn’t quite be recalled when he scribbled down song lyrics, there to listen to his frustrations and rub his aches and pains. It was home.

\--

They were in Cincinnati when it happened. The MTV crew had left and wouldn’t be back until the concert they were filming in three weeks. Erwin had gone back to New York too, having meetings and other artists to tend.

The five guys were crammed into the radio station studio doing a call-in interview with fans before the night’s concert. Levi watched behind a window, surrounded by his PA, Petra, and the bodyguards.

“OK, we have time for one more question,” the DJ gushed. “Hello, you are on the air with 3DMG!”

“Yes. My name is Sandra, and I am a parent of a thirteen year old girl. And I just want to say that I think it is disgraceful that these young men would associate themselves with two sinful homosexuals who are pushing their gay agenda on America with their music -”

For fuck’s sake. Didn’t they have screeners for this exact type of shit? Levi fumed. The DJ cut off the caller and tried to move on, but the boys interjected.

“No, I want to answer this,” Jean said. “There’s no gay agenda. The only agenda they have is to make music that people love. And if they happen to love each other too, so what? Music is music and love is love. We all have different tastes in music, and no one cares. So why does it matter if we have different tastes in love? I’m grateful every day to be associated with Levi and Erwin. Levi – our manager, and Erwin Smith our label executive… Erwin and Levi gave me -- gave all of us -- a chance to follow our dream of making music.”

‘Yeah. Exactly. Right on’ the other boys chorused.

“Thank you for that,” the DJ said, and then finished up his usual spiel. The guys filed out of the studio. Levi nodded them out the door. The radio station manager rushed over, apologizing profusely, but Levi waved him off. He didn’t care to listen to platitudes. “I know, I know. I’ll have someone take care of the tapes.” He fished out his phone and called Erwin. He got Erwin’s admin, Hanji.

“Erwin’s in a meeting right now,” Hanji chirped.

“Just tell him to call me as soon as he’s done. Petra will explain,” he said, handing his phone off, too pissed to give Hanji the details. He walked outside, and climbed into the front seat van. He blew out the breath he’d been holding and turned around. Five subdued faces looked up at him. “Jean. You did a great job handling that. This is probably going to be all over our press for a while, so be prepared.” Levi paused. He could continue to give instructions, but the guys didn’t need them. They were good kids.  He compelled his mouth into a tight smile and turned back to stare out the front window. “Shadis, let’s get out of here.”

Forty-five minutes later, back at the hotel, Levi’s phone rang. “Erwin,” Levi said, then stopped.  He was still too angry to continue.

“I know,” Erwin’s voice cracked over the phone.

“I’m just tired of dealing with shit like this.”

“I know.”

The silence lengthened, held. There was nothing else to say.

“I know,” Erwin said again, quiet.

\--

Erwin lost his arm in a freak accident when a piece of lighting scaffolding fell on him while running through a sound check before a concert. His career was put on indefinite hiatus when he went into recovery.

Levi stunned not just the music world, but also the general population when he announced that he was taking a break from his career as well to help Erwin recover. They had been struggling to keep their relationship a secret, neither of them had felt comfortable living a lie, playing the coy game with the public of dating models or actresses to deflect suspicion. They used it as an opportunity to come out.

It was the 80s. There was a shit storm.

They received death threats, preachy letters about hating the sin not the sinner, letters saying that Erwin deserved to lose his arm for being gay, threats and tearful letters from fans that were devastated and felt betrayed that they were gay. They were the subject of countless TV specials, and their song lyrics were analyzed for proof of homosexual subtext. They were branded as unnatural perverts by the Christian right and their songs were banned from many radio stations.

It was hard for two of the world’s biggest musical stars to just disappear from the public eye though. Their announcement galvanized gay rights activists even more. Hundreds of fans wrote to tell them how they had changed their views on homosexuality. There was even surprise support from Dot Pixis, an old country superstar.

Through it all, their bands supported them. “I don’t think anyone can appreciate just how inspirational Erwin is unless you’ve played with him,” said Nanaba, in one of the many interviews of support Survey gave. “When you play with him, you give your whole heart, it’s like he’s just naturally commanding the performance from you. Somehow I just play harder and better when I’m on stage with him, you want to follow him into the music that he’s making.”

“Erwin is, and always will be, my best friend. We started Survey together in my garage when we were stupid teens, and we’ll be playing together in the old folks home when we’re grumpy old men” Mike added.

It only took a matter of months for Erwin’s arm to heal and for him to successfully complete physical therapy. It took over two years for the furor of their relationship to die down. They planned a joint worldwide comeback tour, companion albums, and even signed the rights away to a movie about their lives. It all worked according to plan. Erwin and Levi won Grammys for the albums and the movie swept the awards.

The next time they left music, it was on their own terms. It was the mid-90s. They had been working relentlessly since the late 70s and weren’t getting any younger. Erwin wanted to start a record label and Levi wanted a rest from the public eye.

It all went so well until he got it into his head to start a boy band.

\--

The concert that night went off without a hitch. Some of the attendees had made signs of support, colorful rainbow posterboards with Jean’s words “Love is love” scrawled in Shapie. It was 1am now, and fans will still milling around, trying to sneak backstage. Levi escorted the guys onto their bus and saw them off while he stayed behind. He was ostensibly supervising the teardown, but mostly he was trying to stay distracted from the day’s events. He paced back to the dressing room and fell into the one of the chairs. Fuck, it was times like this that Levi wished he was a smoker. Instead, he began folding the stage costumes that had been tossed into the room between songs. His mind was so focused on the task he didn’t hear the door open.

“I should have known you’d be cleaning.”

Levi spun around. “Erwin. What are you doing here?”

“I heard there was a sinful homosexual here. You know how much I love those.” Erwin smiled at him, face wrinkled and weary with the day’s stress and a last minute flight halfway across the country, but still beautiful enough to catch Levi’s breath. Levi reached out to him. Erwin came over and wrapped his arm around him.

He burrowed his face into Erwin’s chest. “Asshole, don’t joke about that,” he grumbled. The crew rolled set pieces down the hallway, the dancers’ laughter floated in the air, the static of the security detail’s radios crackled around, outside the door Petra and Hanji caught up on their mutual acquaintances. Levi let himself be still in the middle of it all. Erwin’s arm was warm and solid; the lifeline that Levi held onto for so many years.

\--

The next day, MTV.com lead with the headline “Music is music. Love is love.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr flailing about eruri [here.](http://capt-grumpypants.tumblr.com) The regular tumblr is [here.](http://berryfunkedup.tumblr.com)


End file.
